


Council of War

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Beverley & Nightingale friendship, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Injured Characters, Light Angst, Peter & Nightingale friendship, Post-The Hanging Tree, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: If you've ever asked yourself what's worse than waking up and finding you're in the hospital, again, it's jerking awake from a nightmare in the hospital with your boss calling your name and holding your arms down so you don't hurt yourself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after The Hanging Tree. Some spoilers involved.

If you've ever asked yourself what's worse than waking up and finding you're in the hospital, _again_ , it's jerking awake from a nightmare in the hospital with your boss calling your name and holding your arms down so you don't hurt yourself.

“Sorry,” I said, when I realised Punch wasn't actually driving a stake through my heart.

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Nightingale said, sitting back down. I was really going to have to learn how he managed to look so pristine all the time, no matter the situation.

“So,” I said, staring up a ceiling I was getting stupidly close to recognising. “The hospital.”

“Yes. You gave us quite a scare.”

“Us?”

Nightingale indicated the chair on the other side of the bed. “Beverley had an exam. She was going to – influence – the proceedings and stay, but I think I convinced her you wouldn't want that...I trust I wasn't interfering,” he added after a moment.

I wondered what he thought I'd been thinking about, as he'd explained. Mostly I'd been thinking that Bev wouldn't have left unless I really was going to be okay, no matter what Nightingale said to her.

“I could call her back?” Nightingale suggested.

I realised I'd been silent a little too long and now he thought I didn't want him here. And maybe I didn't, which is why I still didn't say anything. Maybe I was just too tired to deal with any of this.

“I'll see you in the morning,” he finally said, moving in his chair so that it didn't even creak, even though NHS furniture has been especially designed to be as uncomfortable and noisy as humanely possible.

I felt the air change slightly as he went to touch my arm, and then apparently thought better of it.

I wondered if all his years in the Folly had left him touch starved.

“Do you still have them?” I asked, before he could move too far away.

“Have what?”

“Nightmares.” I turned to look at him, to gauge his reaction. Mostly he just looked curious.

“Yes. Sometimes.” He hesitated, seemingly trying to read my face for clues. Slowly he sat back down. “Do you want to talk - “

I laughed, but it came out more of a sob than I would have liked. “No.”

“They aren't as frequent as they were, just after...” he began anyway. “They -” He paused and I released I was staring at him, watching his face for clues now. “I think they're more intense now, more _real._ I've started to think they're the price I have to pay, for still being here.”

I was curious despite myself, Nightingale very rarely talks about his lack of ageing.

“Have you had them since I've been at the Folly?”

“Why do you think your bedroom is so far from mine?” he asked.

I hadn't really given it much thought, aside from the obvious superior officer wanting his privacy.

“It's always Punch,” I said, before I could change my mind.

“It's always tanks,” Nightingale said. “Somewhat disappointingly as I did actually face other challenges during the war, and since in fact. But tanks always feature somewhere.” He gave me a small, rueful smile and I found myself returning it.

“You've never said, if you minded. About me staying away with Bev so many nights.”

“You deserve a private life, Peter. There is precedent, if that's what's worrying you.”

It wasn't at all but I could see he thought he'd revealed enough about his private thoughts for one day. Sometimes I wonder what it would take for him to completely open up, tell me where his family are now for instance – they surely all can't be dead – but then I think he thinks he's protecting me by not saying too much. I think he's worried about confiding in me, not I hope because he thinks I'll judge his past, just because there's so much of it.

“Does Punch ever say anything? In these dreams?”

I blinked and tried to focus. “No, he just laughs.”

“And do they happen when you're with Beverley, as well?”

“I've had them at her house,” I replied, though I wasn't sure whether she had been there when I had. I didn't say that though, because I'd caught the hint of relief from Nightingale – he was worried _he_ was the constant.

“There are people...”

“Are you trying to get me to see a counsellor?” I asked, words coming out sharper than I think I'd intended.

Nightingale didn't react, of course, he rarely does. “I found it a great help, once,” he said, surprising me. “Keeping a diary was also one recommendation.”

I could both imagine Nightingale keeping a journal and also struggle entirely to imagine him committing his darkest fears to paper.

“After the war?”

“Yes, though not when you're thinking. The '50s I think it was, late '50s perhaps.”

I thought about prodding for more but my shoulders were starting to ache and I was beginning to remember that Martin sodding Chorley had tried to squash me with a crane earlier in the day. So I closed my eyes.

“I'll stay for a little while, if I may?” he asked quietly. I didn't respond. I thought I heard him sigh and nearly apologised. I didn't know why I was being so off with him today, except maybe everything ached, body, head, heart. I was just _done._ Not for long. Not for ever. Just for this night, this night I'd allow myself to mope.

I knew Nightingale wouldn't hold it against me.

* * * * *

The next time I woke up, sans nightmare, Beverley was sitting in the chair, scribbling in the margins of a textbook. She pretended not to notice I was awake and let me take in my fill. By the time she turned a smile to me I felt more grounded than when Nightingale was here.

“How'd it go?” I asked nodding at the book.

“Good. Nothing I wasn't prepared for.” She marked her place in the book and put it on the bedside table, next to a half-eaten packet of grapes. “Did He tell you I nearly had the exam cancelled?”

“More or less,” I replied. “But you left because you knew I'd be all right.”

Beverley's eyes opened a little wide and she made a show of checking the IV I hadn't even noticed I was wearing; it hadn't been there before.

“You were dehydrated,” she explained. “And I left because Nightingale was here and I'd put a lot of work into that exam.”

It was true, she had. She had been putting in as many hours as me and my Latin and lately she'd got me to test her on some things and she even let me read her last essay. Of course, it may as well have been in Greek, for all the sense it made to me.

“Chorley again?” she asked. Because Nightingale would have told her the same as I would about an active case, the bare minimum.

“Yeah. And Lesley.”

“They said something about a crane?”

I didn't ask who they were. Sometimes it's best not to know and Beverley wouldn't tell me if I asked anyway.

“The bastard pushed it over just as Sahra was making a grab for Lesley.” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice, but I haven't quite got Nightingale's knack for it yet.

Just like Nightingale had predicted, Chorley had made mistakes and his and Lesley's trail became a little bit hotter. Too hot it turned out when me and Sahra went to investigate a building site only to find Chorley and Lesley there, disposing of a body.

The fight hadn't been quite as dramatic as some of our previous ones, at least until the crane. Chorley had aimed it at Sahra and I'd only just managed to move it away from her when the sandy hill I'd been standing on crumbled beneath me with the weight of it. I think part of it hit me, though I'm still a little hazy on that, I just remember taking the strain and then it feeling much lighter, and then nothing.

“You know he's got two cracked ribs.”

For a second I thought she meant Chorley, until common sense prevailed.

“Nightingale? How did -” I'd been on the radio to him when I'd spotted Lesley. He must have headed out straight away. “The crane?”

“They said he managed to stop it falling long enough for Sahra and Stephanopoulos to pull you clear.”

I sighed. That explained why he'd been holding himself so stiffly earlier.

“You two confide in each other the strangest things,” Beverley said.

I couldn't disagree. There are things that I've told him I haven't told anyone else but not the stuff I tell Beverley, or she manages to work out for herself. I know he tells me things he hasn't told anyone else too, but probably not the things Bev thinks he should be telling me.

“Did he go home?”

Beverley hesitated just enough for me to become suspicious, and she knew it too. “Dr Walid persuaded him to get some sleep here.”

“I want to see him,” I decided. I started to sit up only for Beverley to push me back down.

“Peter, he's fine. You can see him later.” She swore under her breath as I tried to pull out my IV. “Just wait here, don't move.”

She headed out of the room and came back not long after with a wheelchair. I tried to keep my expression blank but Beverley can read me like a book.

“It's this or nothing,” she said. We stared at each other for a moment but only so I didn't feel like I was giving in too easily; we both knew I wasn't winning this fight.

“Fine,” I said. As Beverley helped me into the wheelchair I acknowledged that if I'd tried to do this by myself I'd be face down on the floor by now. I squeezed Bev's hand and she planted a kiss on the top of my head.

Dr Walid had put Nightingale in a room just down the corridor from mine. When we got there he looked asleep, but his eyes opened as soon as we came inside. His gaze drifted to Beverley instead of me.

“He's fine. Just stubborn.” She wheeled me closer to the bed and then took a seat. “You should know all about that.”

Nightingale looked almost sheepish and it was my first indication that Beverley had already had words about him not telling me he was injured.

“You should be resting,” Nightingale said to me.

“Beverley's right,” I replied. “Stubborn.”

He gave me a soft smile, perfectly aware I was talking about the both of us. “Old habits,” he said.

Beverley made a noise in the back of her throat, which could have been annoyance or recognition that she was stuck with the both of us for the foreseeable.

I reached out for Bev's hand again. “I had that dream...nightmare.”

“About Punch and...” Beverley hesitated. “You still haven't told him?”

I flushed a little guiltily.

“Told me what?” Nightingale said, shifting a little in the bed. If I hadn't been looking I wouldn't have noticed the pain lines around his eyes. I wondered how many people ever did.

“It only started recently – in the last year -” I amended as Beverley squeezed my hand, hard. “Punch is always in it and then, then he turns into you.”

It was horrible, worse than Punch's laugh which set me on edge enough, to see Nightingale morph into Punch's face, expression twisted into a mask of hate and disgust that I'd never seen on the real Nightingale.

“I see,” Nightingale said. And he probably did. Beverley might not like it but we're pretty good at not needing words most of the time. It's one of the reasons I like him so much. “Do you think it's just a dream, or is he really communicating with you?”

Before I'd have put it down to my imagination. Now, I knew better.

“I think he's upped his game,” I admitted. I knew I should probably have said something earlier and I would have, if I thought he was a threat to the Queen's peace, I strongly suspected though that at this point he was only interested in disturbing mine.

“We'll just have to do something about that then, won't we?” Nightingale said, including Beverley in the sweep of his gaze.

Beverley moved our hands on to the bed, not touching Nightingale's, but close enough that we could have if we'd wanted.

“Yes,” she said, “I think we will”.

I smiled, feeling the tension I'd been carrying since I first saw Chorley start to drain away. If Punch wanted a fight it seemed like he was going to get it. And God help anyone who tried to help him.


End file.
